Colorado Jim Part 16

Included in this crowd were two familiar figures--an immense man, looking even more immense in his bearskin parkha, and a woman, garbed in similar fashion, whose faces were set and cold. They folded up their tent as the first light of the morn struck the white pinnacle above, and packed it with the other mult.i.tudinous things that formed a dump on the snow beside them.

"Got to make the pa.s.sage now. There's wind coming," said Jim.

Angela said nothing. She had got beyond repartee. The immediate past was a nightmare, filled with terrible journeying, close proximity with the sweepings of the gutter, and sights that at times almost froze the blood within her. And yet the worst had not arrived! Twice she had tried to escape from this enforced pilgrimage, but had failed utterly. Jim had brought her back by brute force. She became aware of the difficulties that faced her. She was his wife--his property. Had any modern Don Quixote felt like rescuing a beautiful woman in distress, he might well have hesitated at sight of the husband. As civilization was left behind so the hope of escape lessened.

Her brain swam as she beheld this terrifying thing over which she was expected--nay, compelled--to travel. Yet other women were doing it--women with children in their arms! But perhaps they loved the men they accompanied, whilst she---- She bit her lips as she looked at the grim face of Jim.

All the gear had to be packed over that awful height. Jim, anxious to save time, collared three wiry Indians and bargained with them. For ten cents a pound they were ready to pack the gear. He agreed, and she saw them take on to their backs an immense burden. Each of them carried no less than 200 pounds. With these crushing weights they were going to climb the dizzy path. It was amazing!

The Indians having started, Jim began to strap the rest of the packages about him. Despite her hate, she could not but feel a sense of admiration.

When she thought his back was about to break he still added more, grunting as he took up the packages. All but a sack of beans found lodgment on that huge body. The latter he placed into her hands.

"Take that," he said.

She hesitated, and then took it, carrying it in her arms as she might a child.

"Better shoulder it," he growled.

"I can carry it better this way," she retorted.

He said no more but began the ascent. In a few minutes she found herself almost exhausted. She moved the sack to her shoulder and found this method much easier.

Looking at it from the base, the Chilcoot had been terrifying enough, but on the slope it was a thousand times worse. She remembered a conversation between Jim and a man on the steamer who had made the ascent many times.

"Say, is this Chilcoot as husky a thing as they make out?" queried Jim.

"Wal, stranger, I calculated it would be steepish, but darn me if I thought it would lean back!" the other had replied.

She was beginning to realize how nearly true this was. She had made up her mind she would not give way to the terrific fear that gripped her. She hated to think that she might appear contemptible in his eyes. But the last thousand feet broke all her resolutions. It shot up in one unbroken, dizzy ascent. She saw the Indians, like black ants, climbing and resting alternately. She took a few faltering steps, looked down and shivered. Far below was the black train of climbers, reaching away as far as the eye could see. But above--she dare not risk that awful path. She sat down.

"I can't do it!" she cried.

Jim turned.

"Come on!"

"I can't--I can't!"

He came down to her, slipping and sliding on the frozen snow.

"There's a big wind coming. You'll be blown off if you stay here."

He caught her fingers with his one free hand and began to climb. Step by step they proceeded. Her heart felt cold within her. The Indians had disappeared over the top. It must be flat there, she thought!

A few snowflakes began to fall, and a sullen roar came from the north.

"The blizzard!" growled Jim.

He hastened the pace, dragging her now. The roar increased. The sky to the north and east was inky black. Below them several parties were hastily dumping their packs on the snow and preparing to meet this Arctic monster.... They arrived at the summit at the same moment as the blizzard.

She saw a whirling ma.s.s of snow, heard a roar like ten thousand demons let loose, and felt the strong grip of Jim pulling her down on the snow.

For an hour it raged. It was beyond her wildest imagination. Never had she beheld or even conceived anything so utterly merciless and devastating.

Great ma.s.ses of snow were lifted from the mountain-top and driven before the almost solid wind. It lashed her few inches of exposed flesh, until she found the antidote by placing her heavy mittens before her face and burying her head close to the ground.

Then it lifted, and the sun shone in dazzling radiance from a frozen sky.

The packs and the party were white as the landscape that yawned away on all sides. Before them was a slope as precipitous as that they had just negotiated--but it went _down_. The Indians dug out their packs and, taking their pay, went on in search of further jobs.

Angela wondered how Jim was going to negotiate the dizzy downward path. It ran almost perpendicularly to Crater Lake, beyond which it was easier going.

Jim took the big sled to the top of the slide, and commenced to dump the various packages on to it. With a coil of hemp rope he lashed this load into one compact ma.s.s. It hung on the sheer edge of a precipice, ready for instant flight. The meaning of it suddenly came to her.

"You--you aren't going to slide down?"

"I jest am," he said. "Sit you down there."

Reluctantly she obeyed, clinging tightly to the knotted rope. She saw him give the sled a violent push and jump aboard. It started down the incline, gathering momentum at a dreadful rate. In twenty seconds it was rushing onward like a cannon-ball raising the snow and shrieking as it went....

The speed eventually decreased. They pa.s.sed the frozen lake and made for Linderman, Jim dragging the sled and Angela pushing on the gee-pole.

After that it was a nightmare. Angela's impression was of one endless white wilderness, broken only by a network of frozen lakes and occasional icy precipices. At nights they pitched their tent amid the vast loneliness, banking it with snow to keep out the freezing cold. At times they were held up for days, confined to the evil-smelling tent with a blizzard blowing outside. The oilstove was a blessing, despite its sickening odor, and only the piled-up snow kept the small tent from being blown to ribbons. It was little more than an Esquimo igloo.

When the wind went this merciless husband downed the tent, packed up, and was off again into the wilderness--and there were 400 miles of this! The glare of the sun on the white snow blinded her, until she accepted the snow goggles which she had at first indignantly refused. The stillness frightened her. Never had she imagined such terrible soul-torturing silence; at times she asked questions merely for the pleasure of hearing a human voice. When they overtook some struggling party the desire to stop and talk was all-consuming. But Jim wasn't for wasting time in useless conversation.

She hated him for that. She hated him for all the agony and pain that he had brought her. Fits of uncontrollable anger possessed her. She gave vent to her feelings in bitter rebuke. It had some effect, too. She knew it hurt him by the queer light in his eyes, but he said nothing--which made her angrier still.

He had become even more silent than she. One thing, however, he did regularly. When they partook of the evening meal--a sickly concoction of beans and coffee, or canned meat, and nestled down inside the bearskin sleeping-bags beside the eternal oilstove, his deep voice growled:

"Good-night, Angela!"

Sometimes she responded and sometimes she did not. But it made no difference--the "Good-night" was always uttered.

The last stage of the journey was a fight with time. They struck the Yukon River and went down over the sloppy ice. The break-up was coming, and Dawson was eighty miles away. Despite her bitter feelings she found excitement in the combat. At any moment the ice might split with thundering noise and go smashing down to the sea, piling up in vast pyramids as it went. Each morning they expected to wake and find the ice in movement.

"She'll hold," cried Jim. "Another twenty miles and we're through!"

So they plowed their way to the Eldorado of the North. It was when they were but three miles from Dawson that the break-up came. It was heralded by ear-splitting explosions. Jim put all his weight on to the sled.

"She won't move much yet," he growled. "Mush on!"

For another mile they kept the river trail, and then with deafening crashes from behind them the whole ice began to move. No time was to be lost now. Jim dragged the sled inland and made the bank at a suitable landing.

An hour later they made Dawson City. The streets were filled with half-melted snow, through which a mixed humanity trudged, laden with all kinds of gear and provisions. Tents were pitched on every available piece of land. Saloons were filled with mobs clamoring for drink and food.

Around the Yukon agent's office were crowds waiting to register "claims"

that might or might not make their owners millionaires. All the creeks within miles of Dawson had been staked long since, and late-comers were staking likely spots further afield. News came of rich yields in some barren G.o.d-forsaken place and immediately a stampede was made for it.

Angela, who had pined for any kind of civilization rather than a continuance of the eternal snows, wondered if this were any better. Jim pitched the tent under some spruce-trees and high up on a bluff beyond the city.

"Wal, we're here," he said.